DOCSLIB.ORG

The Nazi Holocaust

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Nazi Holocaust 2005 Learning from the past ~ lessons for today The Holocaust Memorial Day Committee in association with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform; Dublin City Council; Dublin Maccabi Charitable Trust and the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY ....Has the like of this happened in your days or in the days of your fathers? Tell your children about it and let your children tell theirs, and their children the next generation... Joel 2, ii-iii Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY City Hall, Dublin ~ January 2005 Programme • Introductory remarks, Yanky Fachler • Words of welcome, Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Michael Conaghan • Address, the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern TD • The Stockholm Declaration, Michael McDowell TD, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform • Holocaust Memorial Day, Oliver Donohoe, Chairperson, Holocaust Memorial Day committee • Musical interlude • The Shoah must never be trivialised (Simone Veil), read by Dr Garret FitzGerald • Sadism and humiliation (Eva Hoffman), read by John Bowman, Historian and Broadcaster • All of the victims (Elie Wiesel), read by Senator Mary O’Rourke • Nazi persecution of people with disabilities and disabling conditions, read by John Dolan, CEO, Disability Federation of Ireland • Nazi persecution of Gypsies, read by Anastasia Crickley, Chairperson, National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism • Nazi persecution of homosexuals, read by Senator David Norris • Nazi persecution of black people, read by Clement Esebamen, Eqalities Co-ordinator, Tallaght Partnership • Nazi persecution of political opponents, read by David Begg, General Secretary, Irish Congress of Trade Unions • First they came… (Martin Niemoeller), read by Theo Dorgan, Poet and Broadcaster • The Concentration Camps, read by Niall Toibin • Musical interlude • The rescuers, read by Sister Carmel Niland, member of the Council of Christians and Jews • The Old Man and the Conference, read by Paul Durcan • Liberation: readings by the ambassadors of the United States, Britain, Canada and the Russian Federation • Musical interlude • It could happen again (Yehuda Bauer), read by Ruairi Quinn TD • Go home from this place… (Paddy Fitzgibbon), read by Senator Mary Henry • Minute’s silence • CANDLE-LIGHTING CEREMONY • Prayer for the Repose of the Souls of the Departed, Rabbi Dr Yaakov Pearlman, Chief Rabbi of Ireland • El Malei Rachamin, Reverend Alwyn Shulman, Cantor of The Dublin Hebrew Congregation • Closing remarks, Yanky Fachler page 1 Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY Holocaust Memorial Day Mission Statement The Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration is designed to cherish the memory of all of the victims of the Nazi Holocaust. A candle-lighting ceremony is an integral part of the commemoration at which six candles are always lit for the six million Jews who perished, as well as candles for all of the other victims. The commemoration serves as a constant reminder of the dangers of racism and provides lessons from the past that are relevant today. Summary of the Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust Issued in January 2000, on the 55th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945 and endorsed by 44 countries, including Ireland. We, the governments attending the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, recognise that the Holocaust was a tragically defining episode of the 20th Century, a crisis for European civilisation and a universal catastrophe for humanity. In declaring that the Holocaust fundamentally challenged the foundations of civilisation, we share a commitment to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, and to honour those who stood against it. The horrors that engulfed the Jewish People and other victims of the Nazis must forever be seared in our collective memory. With humanity still scarred by genocide, anti-semitism, ethnic cleansing, racism, xenophobia and other expressions of hatred and discrimination, we share a solemn responsibility to fight against these evils. Together with our European partners and the wider international community, we share a commitment to remember all the victims who perished, to respect the survivors still with us, and to reaffirm humanity's common aspiration for a democratic and tolerant society, free of the evils of prejudice and other forms of bigotry. page 2 Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY Message from the Excerpts from the address by Lord Mayor of Dublin President McAleese at the Councillor Michael Conaghan Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration in Dublin, January 2004 I am proud to continue the I am very grateful to have association of Dublin City been invited to this solemn with Holocaust Memorial commemoration and to join Day. I am sure that all with you in this act of future holders of this office remembrance as we call will wish to perpetuate forcefully to mind the this tradition in the city’s enormity of the Shoah, the annual calendar. barbaric human wasteland that was the Holocaust. In addition to commemorating the horrors of the Holocaust and paying tribute to all of the victims, the Sectarian hatred, racist hatred are awesome when they theme of Holocaust Memorial Day is to learn the run amok. The Holocaust told us that so emphatically lessons of the past and make them relevant today. when it confronted the world with ‘the crashing fires of Hell’ to use that phrase from the song of the Warsaw There can be no place in the City of Dublin, which has Ghetto sung in Auschwitz. enjoyed a long and positive relationship with the Jewish community, for the manifestations of anti-Semitism such I visited Majdanek in Poland last year. Today that as we witnessed in recent weeks. Racist behaviour of former Concentration Camp looks so innocuous, so this sort must serve as a timely wake-up call for silent and yet even after all these years it has an greater vigilance. overwhelming atmosphere of despair and anger, of disbelief and rage so powerful it robs you of speech I call on all members of Irish society to renew their and of any lingering complacency. commitment to embrace a more inclusive and more culturally diverse future together. On this third day of Sh’vat, we dedicate our time here today as a Yahrzeit for all those who suffered and died I would like to commend everyone involved in in the Holocaust and for all who survived but carried organising this Holocaust Memorial Day the memory through broken lives. In their name we call commemoration. on all peacemakers to do the work, to take the risks, to cross the divides to make our world a better place, a Cllr Michael Conaghan blessed place. Lord Mayor of Dublin May they bring peace upon us and upon all the earth. page 3 Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY Europe – The number of Jews annihilated by the Nazis in each European country The white figures on black relate to the approximate number of Jews that perished in each European country between September 1939 and May 1945. The total of just over 5,750,000 does not include thousands of infants murdered by the Nazis in late 1941, before their births could be recorded. Thousands of people from the remoter villages in Poland were added to the deportation trains which left larger localities, without any record of their existence or of their fate. page 4 Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY The Nazi Holocaust – a systematic programme to exterminate the Jews of Europe • The first concentration camp, Dachau, is established to hold the prisoners arrested after the arson attack on the Reichstag parliament building in February 1933. • May 1933 – Nazi students and militiamen light huge public bonfires in which they burn books by Jews, communists and other ‘disruptive’ influences. • 1933 onwards – Jews are expelled from the army, the civil service, professional associations, sports and social clubs. • 1935 – The Nuremberg Laws strip Jews of citizenship and define them by racial criteria. • 35,000 Jewish war veterans who had won medals for bravery during WWI lose their privileges. • 9 November 1938 – Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). • 275,000 men, women and children with disabilities die in Nazi euthanasia programmes. • 100,000 Jews die in labour camps between 1939 and 1940. • Following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, SS mobile murder squads known as Einsatzgruppen murder over 2,000,000 civilians, most of them Jews. • Some 500,000 Jews die in ghettos from starvation and disease. • 30,000 Jewish partisans fight the Nazis in Eastern Europe. • More than 7,000 Jews are killed in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising between 19 April and 16 May, 1943. • 1,000,000 Jews, 70,000 Christian Poles, 23,000 Gypsies, 15,000 Soviet prisoners and thousands of others die at Auschwitz. • Of the 300,000 Jews who go into hiding, pretend to be Aryans or acquire false identity papers, 100,000 die after capture or betrayal. • Out of 9,000,000 Jews living in Europe before 1939, only 3,000,000 remain after 1945. page 5 Holocaust MEMORIAL DAY Hats, Ribbons and Refugees The impoverished state of the west of Ireland in the At the opening of Les Modes Modernes in Galway, 1930s, prompted the Irish government to send a trade business was boosted when the Bishop of Galway delegation to Europe to explore the possibility of encouraged his lady parishioners to wear hats instead of attracting European industries to relocate to Ireland. The head-scarves to Mass. Serge was joined in Galway by his delegation succeeded in bringing two hat factories and wife Sophie and their daughter Rachel, but soon one ribbon factory to the region. afterwards, mother and daughter made the tragic mistake of returning to Paris for Sophie to be with her elderly mother and for Rachel to attend school there. Sophie was eventually arrested by the French police and sent, via Drancy, to the concentration camp where she perished. Rachel survived the war and was reunited with her father in Ireland.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Myth of the Extermination of the Jews: Part II
    The Myth of the Extermination of the Jews: Part II CARL0 MATTOGNO 1. Birth and Development of Revisionism ational Socialist policy in the matter of Jewish emigration, N pursued officially until the beginning of February 1942, thus posed a question that really was "throbbing," to use again the adjective employed by Poliakov. If it was true that exterminating the Jews "conformed to the fundamental objective of National social ism"^; if it was true that it was not "the coming to a head of an unforeseeable explosion of violence, or of a betrayal of trust by subordinates, but the fruit of an ideology of death and of an organic design"^; if it was true that "according to Hitler, among the ends that had to be achieved thanks to the war, the general extermination of the Jews had a very important place, to the realization of which the German government would devote a large part of its forces,"3 for what mysterious reason did Adolf Hitler deprive himself of at least a million victims by allowing them to emigrate? It was thus inevitable that so atrocious an accusation, based essentially on "third and fourth hand accounts," on 'Wle game of psychological deductions," knowing that "all these could offer was fragile and speculative," and on "fragmentary and sometimes hypothetical answers," be placed in doubt. In the immediate post-war period and in the following years severe criticisms were formulated in regard to the trials of those who were called "Nazi war criminalsn-in particular, the Nuremberg trial4-and concerning the behavior of the Allies during the war.5 The first to raise doubt about the reality of the "extermination" of the Jews was the Frenchman, Paul Rassinier,a who is justly considered to be the precursor of present-day Revisionism.
    [Show full text]
  • SS-Totenkopfverbände from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (Redirected from SS-Totenkopfverbande)
    Create account Log in Article Talk Read Edit View history SS-Totenkopfverbände From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from SS-Totenkopfverbande) Navigation Not to be confused with 3rd SS Division Totenkopf, the Waffen-SS fighting unit. Main page This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason Contents has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can. (December 2010) Featured content Current events This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding Random article citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2010) Donate to Wikipedia [2] SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), rendered in English as "Death's-Head Units" (literally SS-TV meaning "Skull Units"), was the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi SS-Totenkopfverbände Interaction concentration camps for the Third Reich. Help The SS-TV was an independent unit within the SS with its own ranks and command About Wikipedia structure. It ran the camps throughout Germany, such as Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Community portal Buchenwald; in Nazi-occupied Europe, it ran Auschwitz in German occupied Poland and Recent changes Mauthausen in Austria as well as numerous other concentration and death camps. The Contact Wikipedia death camps' primary function was genocide and included Treblinka, Bełżec extermination camp and Sobibor. It was responsible for facilitating what was called the Final Solution, Totenkopf (Death's head) collar insignia, 13th Standarte known since as the Holocaust, in collaboration with the Reich Main Security Office[3] and the Toolbox of the SS-Totenkopfverbände SS Economic and Administrative Main Office or WVHA.
    [Show full text]
  • Using Diaries to Understand the Final Solution in Poland
    Miranda Walston Witnessing Extermination: Using Diaries to Understand the Final Solution in Poland Honours Thesis By: Miranda Walston Supervisor: Dr. Lauren Rossi 1 Miranda Walston Introduction The Holocaust spanned multiple years and states, occurring in both German-occupied countries and those of their collaborators. But in no one state were the actions of the Holocaust felt more intensely than in Poland. It was in Poland that the Nazis constructed and ran their four death camps– Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, and Belzec – and created combination camps that both concentrated people for labour, and exterminated them – Auschwitz and Majdanek.1 Chelmno was the first of the death camps, established in 1941, while Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec were created during Operation Reinhard in 1942.2 In Poland, the Nazis concentrated many of the Jews from countries they had conquered during the war. As the major killing centers of the “Final Solution” were located within Poland, when did people in Poland become aware of the level of death and destruction perpetrated by the Nazi regime? While scholars have attributed dates to the “Final Solution,” predominantly starting in 1942, when did the people of Poland notice the shift in the treatment of Jews from relocation towards physical elimination using gas chambers? Or did they remain unaware of such events? To answer these questions, I have researched the writings of various people who were in Poland at the time of the “Final Solution.” I am specifically addressing the information found in diaries and memoirs. Given language barriers, this thesis will focus only on diaries and memoirs that were written in English or later translated and published in English.3 This thesis addresses twenty diaries and memoirs from people who were living in Poland at the time of the “Final Solution.” Most of these diaries (fifteen of twenty) were written by members of the intelligentsia.
    [Show full text]
  • British Responses to the Holocaust
    Centre for Holocaust Education British responses to the Insert graphic here use this to Holocaust scale /size your chosen image. Delete after using. Resources RESOURCES 1: A3 COLOUR CARDS, SINGLE-SIDED SOURCE A: March 1939 © The Wiener Library Wiener The © AT FIRST SIGHT… Take a couple of minutes to look at the photograph. What can you see? You might want to think about: 1. Where was the photograph taken? Which country? 2. Who are the people in the photograph? What is their relationship to each other? 3. What is happening in the photograph? Try to back-up your ideas with some evidence from the photograph. Think about how you might answer ‘how can you tell?’ every time you make a statement from the image. SOURCE B: September 1939 ‘We and France are today, in fulfilment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack on her people.’ © BBC Archives BBC © AT FIRST SIGHT… Take a couple of minutes to look at the photograph and the extract from the document. What can you see? You might want to think about: 1. The person speaking is British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. What is he saying, and why is he saying it at this time? 2. Does this support the belief that Britain declared war on Germany to save Jews from the Holocaust, or does it suggest other war aims? Try to back-up your ideas with some evidence from the photograph. Think about how you might answer ‘how can you tell?’ every time you make a statement from the sources.
    [Show full text]
  • USHMM Individual Profile Cards
    INDIVIDUAL PROFILE CARDS UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM Faiga (Fanny) Orenbach was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Łódź, Poland. The family moved to Brussels, Belgium when she was a young child, where her parents became active in the Jewish community. Fanny earned a art degree and designed clothing for the Royal House of Belgium. In May 1938, Fanny married Jacques Aizenberg, and less than a year later, gave birth to a daughter, Josiane. Germany invaded Belgium on May 10, 1940. Jacques left immediately to join the military, and after Belgium was defeated, he evacuated to England. Although she was Jewish, Fanny soon became actively involved in the resistance movement, hiding refugees in her attic. In October 1942, a few months after Fanny’s father was arrested, Fanny put Josiane in hiding. Fanny and her mother, Rivke, also went into hiding, but the Gestapo discovered and arrested them in 1943. They were beaten and taken to the Mechelen (Malines) transit camp. After ten days in Mechelen, Fanny and Rivke were deported to Auschwitz. Upon arrival at Auschwitz, Fanny and Rivke were placed in separate lines. Fanny Orenbach Aizenberg Fanny never saw her mother again. Fanny found encouragement from a group of six women. Together, they endured beatings, forced labor in a grenade factory, cruel and painful medical experiments, and the many other Born 1916 horrors of Auschwitz. Łódź, Poland In January 1945, the SS evacuated Auschwitz, sending Fanny and tens of thousands of prisoners on a forced march in frozen temperatures. After four months, Fanny and the other survivors were liberated near the Elbe River by the Soviet Red Army.
    [Show full text]
  • Kód ITMS: 26120130002
    Moderné vzdelávanie pre vedomostnú spoločnosť / Projekt je spolufinancovaný zo zdrojov EÚ PhDr. Miloš Kázik Ako vyučovať o holokauste s dôrazom na regionálnu históriu Osvedčená pedagogická skúsenosť edukačnej praxe Banská Bystrica 2014 Vydavateľ: Metodicko-pedagogické centrum, Ševčenkova 11, 850 01 Bratislava Autor OPS/OSO: PhDr. Miloš Kázik Kontakt na Spojená škola, Hattalova 471, 027 43 Nižná, autora: [email protected] Názov OPS/OSO: Ako vyučovať o holokauste s dôrazom na regionálnu históriu Rok vytvorenia 2014 OPS/OSO: VII. kolo výzvy Odborné PaedDr. Peter Majer stanovisko vypracoval: Za obsah a pôvodnosť rukopisu zodpovedá autor. Text neprešiel jazykovou úpravou. Táto osvedčená pedagogická skúsenosť edukačnej praxe/osvedčená skúsenosť odbornej praxe bola vytvorená z prostriedkov národného projektu Profesijný a kariérový rast pedagogických zamestnancov. Projekt je financovaný zo zdrojov Európskej únie. Kľúčové slová Pedagogická skúsenosť; holokaust; história; regionálny aspekt; didaktický aspekt; slovensko-židovské spolužitie. Anotácia Práca približuje podnety a skúsenosti autora s vyučovaním tém, spojených s holokaustom. Táto problematika je primárne spojená s dejepisom, ale súvisí aj s ďalšími spoločenskovednými predmetmi, ako sú občianska náuka, slovenský jazyk a literatúra. Holokaust slovenských Židov je v práci spojený s regionálnym aspektom, aby žiaci mohli danú tému lepšie pochopiť a precítiť. Autor svoju prácu komponoval tak, že v nej v chronologickom slede zobrazuje rôzne súvislosti tejto historickej témy. Cieľom práce
    [Show full text]
  • Intimacy Imprisoned: Intimate Human Relations in The
    INTIMACY IMPRISONED: INTIMATE HUMAN RELATIONS IN THE HOLOCAUST CAMPS In fulfillment of EUH 6990 Dr. Daniel E. Miller 1 December 2000 Donna R. Fluharty 2 Each person surviving the Holocaust has their own personal narrative. A great number of these narratives have been written; many have been published. It is important for personal accounts to be told by each survivor, as each narrative brings a different perspective to the combined history. Knowing this, I dedicate my research to the narratives I was unable to read, whether they were simply unavailable or, unfortunately, unwritten. More importantly, this research is dedicated to those whose stories will never be told. 3 In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl states that a human being is able to withstand any condition if there is sufficient meaning to his existence, a theme which permeates the entire work. 1 For a significant number of people, the right to this search for meaning was denied by a Holocaust which took the lives of an undetermined number of European Jews, war criminals, homosexuals, Gypsies, children, and mentally or physically handicapped persons. This denial of humanness was an essential component of Adolph Hitler’s plan to elevate the Aryan nation and rid the world of undesirables. In spite of laws which dictated human associations, through the triumph of the human spirit, certain prisoners of the Nazi ghettos, labor camps, and death camps were able to survive. Many of these survivors have graced the academic and public world with a written account of their experiences as prisoners of the Nazis.
    [Show full text]
  • Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe
    UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe Symposium Presentations W A S H I N G T O N , D. C. Forced and Slave Labor in Nazi-Dominated Europe Symposium Presentations CENTER FOR ADVANCED HOLOCAUST STUDIES UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM 2004 The assertions, opinions, and conclusions in this occasional paper are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council or of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. First printing, April 2004 Copyright © 2004 by Peter Hayes, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright © 2004 by Michael Thad Allen, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright © 2004 by Paul Jaskot, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright © 2004 by Wolf Gruner, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright © 2004 by Randolph L. Braham, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright © 2004 by Christopher R. Browning, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright © 2004 by William Rosenzweig, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright © 2004 by Andrej Angrick, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright © 2004 by Sarah B. Farmer, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Copyright © 2004 by Rolf Keller, assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Contents Foreword ................................................................................................................................................i
    [Show full text]
  • Between Brenner and Bari: Jewish Refugees in Italy 1945 to 1948
    This article was downloaded by: [Tel Aviv University] On: 06 May 2012, At: 00:12 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjih20 Between Brenner and Bari: Jewish refugees in Italy 1945 to 1948 Eva Pfanzelter a a Instructor at the Institute for Contemporary History, Leopold‐Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria Available online: 18 Jun 2008 To cite this article: Eva Pfanzelter (1998): Between Brenner and Bari: Jewish refugees in Italy 1945 to 1948, Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture, 19:3, 83-104 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13531049808576140 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/ terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
    [Show full text]
  • Hitler and Himmler Were Forebears
    Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Man's DNA tests to 'prove' Hitler and Himml... Página 1 de 3 Sign in · Register Go to: Guardian Unlimited home Go Read today's paper · Jobs Search: Go Guardian Unlimited Web Home UK Business Audio World dispatch The Wrap Newsblog Talk Search The Guardian World News guide Arts Special reports Columnists Technology Help Quiz Man's DNA tests to 'prove' Hitler and Himmler were forebears Dale Fuchs in Madrid Monday May 8, 2006 The Guardian A Spanish university is conducting DNA tests on a 50-year-old electrician from Granada who is trying to prove he is a Search this site descendent of both Adolf Hitler and the Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler. Go The man's claim is based on physical similarities and childhood memories. But the department of forensic medicine Special report: the second world war at the University of Granada has taken his theory seriously enough to do the DNA tests on both him and the exhumed Second world war: archived remains of his father and grandparents, according to El Mundo articles newspaper. Article continues In this section Man's DNA tests to 'prove' Hitler and Himmler were forebears Obituary: Rear Admiral Robert Timbrell Leader: In praise of... lend- lease Far East war veterans cast light on family past Max Hastings: We would have done the same under Nazi occupation Villa owner rejects memorial to Churchill Interview: Imre Kert? Germany to release archive The university forensic team has previously worked on other files on millions of Nazi high-profile identifications, including bodies from unmarked victims civil war graves, and the remains of Christopher Colombus.
    [Show full text]
  • Bombing Auschwitz
    Press Contacts: Dorean Rose Pugh, WNET, 212-560-3005, [email protected] Press Materials: http://thirteen.org/pressroom or http://pbs.org/pressroom Secrets of the Dead: Bombing Auschwitz Premieres Tuesday, January 21 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), pbs.org/secrets and the PBS Video app to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Synopsis In April 1944, Jewish prisoners Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler miraculously escaped from Auschwitz concentration camp and fled through Nazi-occupied Poland to find refuge in Žilina, Slovakia, where they connected with the Jewish Underground. Once safe, they recounted what they left behind. Their harrowing testimony revealed the true horror of the Holocaust to the outside world, describing in forensic detail the gas chambers and the full extent of the Nazi extermination program. While millions of troops fought on both fronts and battled for supremacy in the air during World War II, Nazi forces continued to deport Jews to the concentration camp. As Vrba and Wetzler’s account made its way to Allies, the idea of bombing the camp was discussed at the highest levels of government. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Allied Air Commanders, the American War Refugee Board and the Jewish Agency were presented with one of the greatest moral questions of the 20th century: Should we bomb Auschwitz and risk killing Jewish prisoners in the camp to stop future atrocities? Secrets of the Dead: Bombing Auschwitz explores this dilemma through dramatic recreations of arguments that took place on both sides of the Atlantic and first- hand testimony from historians, survivors and expert voices.
    [Show full text]
  • The-Auschwitz-Protocol.Pdf
    The Auschwitz Protocol The Vrba-Wetzler Report [Transcribed from the original O.S.I report of the US Department of Justice & the War Refugee Board Archives] Rudolf Vrba Alfred Wetzler I. AUSCHWITZ AND BIRKENAU ON THE 13TH April, 1942 our group, consisting of 1,000 men, was loaded into railroad cars at the assembly camp of SERED. The doors were shut so that nothing would reveal the direction of the journey, and when they were opened after a long while we realized that we had crossed the Slovak frontier and were in ZWARDON. The train had until then been guarded by Hlinka men, but was now taken over by SS guards. After a few of the cars had been uncoupled from our convoy, we continued on our way arriving at night at AUSCHWITZ, where we stopped on a sidetrack. The reason the other cars were left behind was appar-ently the lack of room at AUSCHWITZ. They joined us, how-ever, a few days later. Upon arrival we were placed in rows of five and counted. There were 643 of us. After a walk of about 20 minutes with our heavy packs (we had left Slovakia well equipped), we reached the concentration camp of AUSCHWITZ. We were at once led into a huge barrack where on the one side we had to deposit all our luggage and on the other side completely undress and valuables behind. Naked, we then proceeded to an adjoining barrack where our heads and bodies were shaved and disinfected with Lysol. At the exit every man was given a number which began with 28,600 in consecutive order With this number in hand we were then herded to a third barrack where so-called registration took place.
    [Show full text]